Red River, Glencore sign Hillgrove offtake agreement

Red River started gold production from Bakers Creek in December 2020 and trucked its first load of gold concentrate from the mine on June 18.

The company will sell 100 per cent of its concentrate to Glencore under the offtake agreement.

Glencore is also Red River’s copper offtake partner at the Thalanga base metal operations in Queensland

Red River managing director Mel Palancian welcomed the new offtake at Hillgrove.

“It’s great to have the support of Glencore for Hillgrove given our strong four-year working relationship to date,” he said.

“Also to commence trucking our gold concentrates to add to our Hillgrove gold dorè revenues. We are focused on the commercial ramp up at Hillgrove whilst also increasing our JORC (joint ore reserves committee) 2012 resource base.”

The Hillgrove gold mine is located 30 kilometres from Armidale in New South Wales.

Red River acquired the mine in August 2019 after it was placed on care and maintenance by Meridian Capital in 2015.

Hillgrove has a 250,000-tonne-per-annum processing plant and poured first gold in early March.

In the March 2021 quarter, Red River produced 667 ounces of gold dorè and concentrates as part of the mine’s stage one operations, with production continuing to ramp up.

The historic mine has produced more than 730,000 ounces of gold in bullion and concentrates over its lifetime.

Red River stated commissioning activities at Hillgrove are also progressing.